Theresa May launching the Conservative party manifesto in Halifax last week.
Photograph: Dan Kitwood/AFP/Getty Images

“Thank God, what a relief.” That was the verdict of one Tory candidate in a marginal seat on Monday upon hearing that while he’d been out knocking on doors, Theresa May had announced a crucial “clarification” of her social care policy by adding a cap on overall care costs.

May and her tight group of close aides, including campaign supremo Sir Lynton Crosby, had decided to take the political hit of a U-turn rather than allow the “dementia tax” to go on dominating the campaign narrative for another day.

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“It will be a case of ‘let’s get the barnacles off the boat’ and saying: look, this is a problem, it’s hijacking the agenda, we need to get off it,” said one senior Conservative.

Veteran Tories outside May’s kitchen cabinet – which includes her key advisers Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill – muttered that her controlling style meant there had been little opportunity for the policy to be road-tested with her own colleagues, let alone with voters in focus groups, before it was unveiled.

Civil servants in the Cabinet Office have been toiling away at a green paper on care costs for months, with Ben Gummer – the Cabinet Office minister heavily involved in producing the Tory manifesto – overseeing the plans. But shortly before the campaign kicked off, Whitehall number-crunchers were still awaiting a clear political steer on which solutions would be acceptable to Tory high command.

That left two options: fudge the issue until the election was out of the way or present the electorate with a plan. Buoyed by their healthy lead in the polls and confident, that with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party proposing tax rises, they could get away with increasing the burden on wealthier homeowners, May’s advisers decided to grasp the nettle.

The resulting package, aimed at resolving one of the most pressing challenges in British public policy, was briefed to journalists last Wednesday night, the day before the formal launch of the Conservative manifesto. There was little time to analyse and understand the plans and they were briefed on a “no approach” basis, meaning journalists should refrain from sharing them with outside experts.

By the next morning, Andrew Dilnot, the respected economist who reviewed the social care system for the coalition government, was condemning the Conservatives’ decision to drop his proposed cap on overall charges.

At the manifesto launch event in Halifax, West Yorkshire, journalists were handed a copy of the slim, dark blue volume just a few minutes before the prime minister appeared. They thumbed through it searching for the eye-catching giveaway that would wipe the social care policy off the next day’s front pages.

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There were passages of uplifting prose, but few numbers and even fewer concrete, costed proposals to grab on to. There was little to leaven the bad news.

By Friday morning, rumblings of discontent were growing louder: Sarah Wollaston, the former GP who is campaigning to retain her Totnes seat for the Conservatives and has campaigned for better funding for social care, wrote an article in the Times warning that “the dropping of the care cap sadly leaves social care uninsurable, leaving in place the miserable lottery of care costs”.

Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates began to report with some glee that the issue was coming up unprompted on the doorsteps. It was rapidly dubbed the “dementia tax” across opposition parties because it was likely to affect people with chronic conditions. Messages about its unpopularity were fed back to CCHQ by Conservatives.

Over the weekend, key ministers were sent out to defend the policy in interviews, but some appeared to do so with less than wholehearted enthusiasm.

Asked by Robert Peston on Sunday whether the cabinet had been consulted on the radical changes to the care system, Boris Johnson sidestepped the question, saying “it’s the right policy” and adding, “There are all sorts of consultations about the manifesto; you wouldn’t expect me to go into detail.”

Nevertheless, there was still a frisson of surprise on Monday morning as word went round the memorial hall in the quiet Welsh village of Gresford that May was about to announce a U-turn. The rumours were prompted by a tweet from the Evening Standard editor and former chancellor, George Osborne.

George Osborne (@George_Osborne)

U-turn coming on social care. There will be a cap. Read today's @EveningStandard for the details

Fifteen minutes later, May got up to the podium to cheers from the front five rows of Conservative activists. The banner behind her omitted her usual campaign slogan, “Strong and stable government”, replaced by the manifesto title “Forward, Together”.

She came out fighting, issuing a series of strongly worded attacks on Jeremy Corbyn – warmly applauded by the crowd of Welsh Tory activists – and then she boldly presented the decision to bolt on a cap on care costs as her response to “fake claims” by Labour.

Conservative sources dismissed questions about a U-turn as “processology”. They pointed out that May was sticking with two of the most controversial aspects of the policy – allowing the value of a person’s property to be included in the means test for whether they should receive free care at home, and means-testing the winter fuel allowance.

But such a public change of tack on a key policy appeared to clash with May’s personal brand of “strong and stable” leadership, which has been central to the Conservatives’ campaign, and it will renew concerns about the guarded way Team May makes decisions.

With little more than a fortnight to go before polling day, some party insiders suggested the public could expect to see more of other cabinet ministers in the days ahead.